by Mindy Mejia
“Shut up! Do it now.” I forced him back to a lying position and was tucking the handcuffs up so they didn’t dangle off the sides, just as we heard the dull thud of the main ward door opening.
“Oh, Jesus H Christ.” A man’s voice came from the end of the corridor. Someone else replied, but I couldn’t hear what they said. I crouched against the wall next to the door, fighting the panic that swelled in my throat.
Lucas’s breathing had sped up, which meant the NoDoz was starting to kick in and counteract the sleeping pills, but other than the quick rise and fall of his chest, he lay motionless on the bed with his eyes closed.
The guards ran past us to the end of the corridor.
“Spray paint? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Radio the desk. Check the rooms. Now.”
One of them called the central monitoring station while the other’s footsteps came closer and closer, pausing at each room. Stride. Pause. Stride.
I held my breath as the feet stopped outside Lucas’s room. A flashlight’s beam shone through the window and bounced off the bed; I could see the glare of the handcuffs clearly open, the straitjacket straps hanging loosely. As noiselessly as possible, I pulled a utility knife out of my jacket pocket, waiting for the shout, for the door to spring open.
“Here!” The yell made me jerk and the flashlight beam disappeared as quickly as it had come, but the door didn’t open. Footsteps ran across the corridor, in the opposite direction of Lucas’s room.
“How the hell could he have gotten out?”
“Crazy people, man. They do crazy shit.”
“He must have gone this way. Come on.”
They hurried back to the emergency exit and into the stairwell. As soon as the door slammed shut, I sprang up and ran to the window, opening the casement and cranking it up as high as it would go. There was enough room to fit through and barely reach the bars.
“The bed.”
Lucas and I dragged it under the window and I jumped on top, retrieving the hacksaw from the bag and starting to saw the middle bar, putting every ounce of muscle into my dad’s diamond tipped blade. Before I’d finished four strokes, Lucas’s arms appeared on either side of me and he gripped the handle, adding his strength to mine. I felt him brace his feet wide as he leaned against me for support.
“Is this . . . going . . . to work?” he asked in my ear as we frantically sawed through the bar.
“Diamond . . . beats . . . rebar.” I puffed as we broke through the other side. I repositioned the saw at the top of the bar—a harder angle because of the window—but we barely got halfway through before more footsteps thundered through the stairwell.
“Shhh.” I stilled our arms and we waited, catching our breath while more guards burst into the ward and examined the spray paint damage not thirty feet away from us. All they had to do was shine a flashlight into this room and it would be over. Hear a noise. Take ten steps this way and send up an alarm that would condemn Lucas to this cell and send me to jail. I felt Lucas’s heart race against my back as we stood, frozen.
Just as one of them started to come closer, they got a call over the radio. It was too muffled to hear, but they immediately headed back into the stairwell and the ward was quiet again. Lucas and I whipped back to the window and sawed as hard and as fast as we could. We hadn’t taken more than a few strokes when a light hit the side of my mask.
“Hey!” A guard—who must have stayed behind when the rest of them left—pointed a flashlight through the door. He tried the knob, but I’d shut it fully, engaging the lock again.
“Central station, I’ve got an escape attempt in ward four. I repeat, ward four, room six. Need immediate backup both inside and out.” His shouted instructions grew disjointed as he ran down the corridor toward the main desk, probably to unlock some emergency keys.
There wasn’t time to saw through the whole thing. I tossed the blade and pushed the partially detached bar as hard as I could to one side. The metal screeched as it slowly opened a hole large enough to squeeze through. The guard returned, still yelling for backup as he stuffed key after key in the lock.
I shrugged off the backpack and shoved it through the opening, hearing it drop on the ground below. Then I turned to Lucas.
“You first.”
His glance shot to the door. “Maya—”
“Go! Now! There’s a rope on the fence straight ahead through the trees.” I braced my stance and lifted his leg.
He started to climb up, pulling himself to the ledge. “But, Maya—”
“Watch your landing.”
I pushed him forward until he fell, vanishing from the window so suddenly and completely that for a second I couldn’t move. He was out. I had gotten him out.
The doorknob turned and footsteps rushed into the room. I pivoted on top of the bed and kicked instinctually, catching the guard straight in the throat. He stumbled and I grabbed one of the window bars, hiking myself up and through as a flood of victory, of total confidence, coursed through my body. I had almost cleared the sawed-off bar—could see Lucas’s shadow hunched below, waiting for me—when two hands grabbed my boot and pulled me sharply back and down.
I screamed as the jagged stump of rebar tore through my jacket and gouged deep.
“Where do you think you’re going, you—”
He didn’t get any farther before my other foot smashed into his face, sending him toppling off the bed, into the desk, and landing hard on the floor. Ignoring the pain, I pulled myself through the opening and dangled from the ledge before dropping to the ground. At least this time I didn’t sprain my ankle. I didn’t see any flashlights in the grounds yet, but voices shouted near the front of the building. Lucas’s hand reached through the darkness, finding mine. He pulled me up and we moved as fast as we could toward the rows of evergreens. His gait was unsure and I began slowing as pain wrapped my middle in a wicked vise grip, hobbling me. Suddenly a light illuminated us from behind and I looked back to see it was coming from Lucas’s window. The same guard I’d just kicked in the face yelled, “Over here! Into the woods!”
More lights bounced around the side of the building, followed by three guards sprinting toward us as the flashlight beam stayed trained on our backs. We disappeared into the trees fifty yards ahead of them and darted through the rows, running on pure adrenaline, breath pumping and feet driving hard into the shadows.
“There,” I whispered, stumbling out of the far side of the woods at the exact spot where the rope was tied to the fence. “You first. Don’t argue.”
He hoisted himself easily. He was becoming more lucid by the second, temporarily winning the drug war I’d waged in his veins. He dropped lightly to the ground on the other side, wearing the backpack. I grabbed the highest knot I could reach and tried to lift myself up, which made pain shriek through my body and tore a groan from my throat.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
He reached through the fence, searching for the wound.
“Don’t touch it. Give me a boost.”
I’d barely said the words before his hands swept down and I stepped into them automatically, feeling the wind rush by my mask as he pushed me up into the night. I grabbed the rope and pulled, gritting my teeth. Lucas guided me from below and I climbed to the top, wobbling precariously over the spikes as the guards broke through the trees.
“Jump!” Lucas shouted and I did, without any thought for the fall or the consequences of the ground rushing up to meet me.
Lucas caught me, taking my weight easily, and carried me as he jogged across the street. The guards’ shouts faded as they retreated back toward the main entrance to pursue either by foot or car, not even bothering to attempt climbing the fence. They were calling the cops if they hadn’t already.
“Turn here. Half a block. Down the alley.”
He followed my panting instructions as I reached behind him and pulled the car keys out of the backpack.
“Here. Stop.”
He dropped me
by the Chevy and opened the door.
“You’re hurt. I’ll drive.”
“Nice try.”
I pushed him through the driver’s seat and fell onto it, slammed the door closed behind us, and turned the car on, throwing it into gear and shooting out of the alley with the lights off. I took us two blocks down and swerved into another alley, working our way north in that zigzag pattern as police sirens blared in the distance. Pulling the ski mask off, I sucked in a deep breath of air and flicked the headlights on, slowing to a sedate twenty miles an hour as we pulled out in a completely different neighborhood and headed toward the University campus. We crested the hill past Amity Creek and Hawk Ridge, and we kept going until we were driving due north on a single country highway where the houses spread further and further apart.
The clock on the dash inched toward midnight and the more the woods took over the skyline, the more I accelerated, speeding away from the city. In Duluth the street kids would be roaming the shipping yards looking for the next unlocked door, Jasper would be pacing the perimeter of the house, growling as the wind beat against the windows, and the downtown bars would be in full swing, ejecting the belligerent too-drunks into the chaos of downtown. I could hear the bustle and traffic, smell the water as it lapped against the shore, see the glow of red and yellow on the neon peninsula that jutted into the lake, the world I was leaving and might not see again. After another ten minutes the homes began receding further into the forest, distant lights shrouded in branches, and Lucas finally turned to face the front of the car. He’d spent the entire drive crouched against his seat watching our tail for anyone in pursuit, but now he reached out and touched the dash.
“This isn’t your car.”
“No.” I answered shakily, fighting against the black edges of the pain. “Butch, my dad’s first mate, lent it to me. He won’t find that out until they get back.”
“No one”—the road started to fade in the headlights—“will report it”—my view of the road slipped lower and lower as I slumped against the driver’s side door—“missing.”
The last thing I remembered before the darkness swallowed me was the jolt of the car hitting the ditch and my body slamming into the steering wheel.
23
* * *
I DRIFTED IN a world where clouds descended over tree covered cliffs, spreading their mist in pockets that roiled with dank threat. Clutching the agate, blood ran up my hands and into my eyes, coloring the forest red. Something stalked me from within the mist, something that was both Derek and not-Derek, dead and not-dead. It closed in behind me, readying for the kill. Running over moss covered boulders and rotting logs, I stumbled and fell at the water’s edge, losing the agate in the waves. I jerked around, sightless and terrified, trying to find the teeth that had clamped into my side, slicing my flesh apart.
“Get off! Get off me!” I woke up screaming in the backseat of the car, clawing at the pain and finding only soft, wet cloth and a smooth line of tape fastening it to my stomach.
“Maya!” Lucas’s voice came from the front seat. Slowly I began to register things. The staccato of broken pavement bumping underneath the car’s tires. The scratch of upholstery against my cheek. The chill of freezing air leaking in from the doors.
I looked down and saw a white square of bandage under my rib cage, peeking out from a twisted belt of red-splattered fabric that I recognized as my shirt. The contents of the first aid kit I’d brought were spilled over the floor like a gale had caught it in a fury. I tried to sit up, failed, then took a deep breath and forced myself vertical, bracing my feet and shoulders between the front seat and backseat of the car.
“Don’t get up. You’re still bleeding.”
Lucas’s hand reached backward and the car swerved as he tried to force me down to the seats. I leaned out of the way.
“Where are we?” I huffed. The road was a dark, two-lane stretch of asphalt lined with trees clawing in at the edges of the headlights.
“Lie down.”
“All the supplies you need are in the trunk. Clothes. Tent. Food.” I spoke slowly, needing to get the words out clearly and before I lost consciousness again. “See the compass on the dash? Keep heading north.”
“Lie down, Maya! We need help. Medicine.”
“All roads lead to Ely.”
“Fuck Ely!”
Even through the pain I had to smile, proud to hear his first contextually appropriate curse. I was his speech therapist, after all. Had to celebrate the victories.
“We just passed a town called Aurora. Is there a hospital near here? A doctor?”
Aurora? I started shaking uncontrollably, my skin and brain both suddenly freezing. How did we cover so much distance already? I remembered passing the reservoir when . . .
“The crash. Are you okay?”
He laughed once, not turning around. “You’re asking me if I’m okay?”
“We hit the ditch. I don’t remember after that.”
Lucas explained pulling me out of the car and how he thought I was dead when he saw the blood soaking my clothes. Then, finding the laceration on my torso, he bandaged me and cinched the shirt over the wound to staunch the bleeding like his father had taught him. Knowing we had to keep moving or at least get out of sight, he laid me in the backseat and pushed the car out of the ditch. He’d never driven before, but with a mechanic for a father he was familiar with the basic principles and he’d watched me enough during our field trips to memorize the motions. The car started without a problem and after a few experiments with the gear shift and pedals, he figured out how to get us back on the road.
Now he held the wheel awkwardly, constantly correcting the car as the headlights roamed between the edges of the lane. “I know we can’t go back to the city, but we’re getting help somewhere. Tell me where to go before you pass out again.”
The shivers wracked my body and I started to slide down, losing the strength to keep myself wedged between the seats.
“We’re coming into the Iron Range. Ely’s right beyond—”
“Maya!” he bellowed, rivaling my dad for volume and irritation.
Shaking, I pulled the burner I’d bought out of my jacket pocket and punched in an address, then heaved the phone forward with the last of my energy. The chills knocked me down to a fetal position on the seat and it was all I could do not to vomit on the floor. My voice sounded like a child as I gave him the name. “Harry. Harry McKinley.”
* * *
The next time I woke up I was being carried into a cabin with a sagging roof that loomed like a ghost from my past. Fat snowflakes poured from the sky, mingling with the scent of wood smoke and pipe tobacco. Somewhere in the distance a truck engine roared then faded into the night. Lucas had found, whether he knew it or not, the border between our worlds.
Lucas laid me down on a couch and a squat man with a graying beard ambled over until his head eclipsed the lamp shining weakly in the corner of the room, the same man who’d spotted me from his vintage Chevy in Ely. One side of his mouth tilted up a few degrees.
“I thought that was you in town the other day. Took me by surprise.”
Nodding, I blinked him into focus. Until I’d encountered the Blackthorns, Harry McKinley had been the closest thing I’d known to a hermit. I hadn’t expected to see him in town, either. The only places I’d ever seen him were puttering around outside this cabin or tucked into a fishing hole somewhere on the water.
“You like to bleed on this couch, girl.”
I let my chest rise and fall a few times, gathering the strength to reply.
“It wasn’t my blood last time.”
“Damn snickity, it wasn’t.” I felt rough fingers lift my arm away from Lucas’s makeshift tourniquet. “You leave any bodies behind this time?”
I didn’t have any more words in me, so I just shook my head weakly.
“Are you a doctor?” Lucas’s voice came from somewhere above my head.
“Nope. Rebuilt a few trolling motors
over the years, but I doubt she works like a Minn Kota.” He laughed at his own joke and then I heard feet shuffling away. “You wait here, eh?”
After a minute I could hear a door open then slam shut. I tried to concentrate on something—the faded cross-stitch sampler hanging on the wall, the cracks running through the ceiling—anything that would help me stay conscious and aware. Then Lucas was there, smoothing the hair away from my face, and I didn’t need any help finding a focal point.
He had deep, black hollows under his eyes and he was sickly pale, but the worry in his expression was lucid and his pupils were dilating correctly. The chemical cocktail Nurse Valerie had been feeding him was already leaving his system. We stared at each other for a while, not speaking, and gradually his worry shifted into something else, a kind of desperate happiness.
“You came for me.” He breathed it more than said it, stroking down the side of my face and reaching for my hand. I gripped it hard as another stab of pain shot through me.
“I told you I would.” I managed a shaky but genuine smile.
“You saved me. I couldn’t escape, couldn’t get free. I didn’t even know where I was trying to go, except I had to go somewhere and they weren’t letting me. It was a nightmare and I couldn’t wake up. Every time I almost surfaced, they would feed me another dose, push me back down. I was lost until I saw you. I think I saw you.” Confusion flickered over his face as he tried to remember. “You were walking away from me and I was screaming for you to come back, but you wouldn’t turn around and I couldn’t reach you. I kept calling for you. I was afraid if I stopped saying your name I would forget again. I would forget you . . . and if I forgot you, then I would forget me.”
He leaned his forehead into my temple. I could hear him swallow.
“When you lifted that mask tonight, your face was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
I closed my eyes and pushed the words out slowly, patiently. “When someone kidnaps you, the proper response is thank you.”
